BTB #148: In Soho, A Digital Start-up From the Book World

When Jane Friedman and Jeff Sharp first became business partners several years ago at HarperCollins, they sought to join the eye of a Hollywood film producer for a striking image and the ear of a publishing executive for evocative language. The pair have since carried that approach forward with the creation late last year of Open Road Integrated Media. Today, the setting is a Soho loft, though, and not a midtown tower, so the not-so-surprising foundation for ORIM is the new world of electronic book publishing.

Ahead of her own presentation to this week’s Digital Book World, Open Road’s Chief Marketing Officer Rachel Chou tells Chris Kenneally that for ORIM the coming book publishing revolution will not mean that reading gets interrupted by a movie. “ We don’t really want to interject – all of a sudden— the author talking… For us, it’s really about understanding what makes powerful marketing materials and the ebook is at the center of it.”

With the emphasis firmly on successful marketing, Chou plans to be data-driven. “The past decade has been about analytics in terms of getting the data, and I think this next decade is about analyzing that data. Is it worth your time? What are we getting out of it?… Where is your audience? And then finding that correct connection.”